A 25-year-old play about Mary, Queen of Scots is bang up to date (UK)
It all began in a modest Chinese restaurant in Grindlay Street, opposite Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre. The actor-director Gerry Mulgrew had just finished the Communicado Theatre Company’s production of Carmen, in which he played a talking dog. It was 1984, three years before the 400th anniversary of Mary, Queen of Scots’ death. Mulgrew summoned the writer Liz Lochhead and a few like-minded individuals. Before the fried rice had arrived he announced: “I want to do a Mary, Queen of Scots show.”
As the food congealed, they discussed what form this might take. Lochhead recalls Mulgrew, a working-class Catholic, saying: “I was brought up to think she was a saint.” Lochhead retorted: “Well, I’m a Proddy Scot, and I was brought up thinking that she was the devil incarnate. Somebody else said: “All we know is Mary, Queen of Scots got her head chopped off.” Lochhead adds: “None of us wanted to be in these camps, as grown-ups, we were all republicans and anti-royalists and all that. It was quite interesting to find myself making a play about a queen.”
Lochhead spent the next three years in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library doing exactly that. What emerged has since become one of the most important Scottish plays of the 20th century. Its name? Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (a panicking Mulgrew christened the play while standing in the print shop). Its fearless use of traditional Scots language has become commonplace, but bringing it all together was a gritty-eyed scrabble.
“In people’s minds now, that’s very much the style and everything about it is very strong,” says Lochhead, “but we didn’t know what [the approach] was until days before we opened — we had no idea.”
It was Mulgrew, who directed and played Knox in the original production, who unlocked the story. “He found the world of the piece; it’s not a historical drama, although there is a sense of that, it is about the vibrancy of the storytelling and the words. He came into the rehearsal room in the Little Lyceum studio, which is no longer there —it’s where the Traverse is now — a great space but quite manky. He said, ‘I’ve got it, it’s a bear pit, it’s the people under the waltzers, it’s the fairs, the travelling circus. We’re the vagabond players, a gang of tinks telling a story.’ ”
Thus the story of the two queens, cousins separated by religion and trapped on an island too small for both of them, as told by a grubby collective which includes a talking crow, was the toast of the festival. Lochhead remembers queuing for another show, outside the old Traverse in the Grassmarket, when a woman from Penguin came up and asked if they could publish the text. It toured Scotland then transferred to the Donmar Warehouse in London (after some discussion with the director about the ability of the southern audience to understand Lochhead’s dialogue).
These days, it is studied by drama and literature students and performed all over the world. As of next month, a new generation will have a chance to meet the vagabond players in some far-flung village halls and community centres. The National Theatre of Scotland is taking a new production to some of our most theatre-deprived outposts...
Read entire article at Times (UK)
As the food congealed, they discussed what form this might take. Lochhead recalls Mulgrew, a working-class Catholic, saying: “I was brought up to think she was a saint.” Lochhead retorted: “Well, I’m a Proddy Scot, and I was brought up thinking that she was the devil incarnate. Somebody else said: “All we know is Mary, Queen of Scots got her head chopped off.” Lochhead adds: “None of us wanted to be in these camps, as grown-ups, we were all republicans and anti-royalists and all that. It was quite interesting to find myself making a play about a queen.”
Lochhead spent the next three years in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library doing exactly that. What emerged has since become one of the most important Scottish plays of the 20th century. Its name? Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (a panicking Mulgrew christened the play while standing in the print shop). Its fearless use of traditional Scots language has become commonplace, but bringing it all together was a gritty-eyed scrabble.
“In people’s minds now, that’s very much the style and everything about it is very strong,” says Lochhead, “but we didn’t know what [the approach] was until days before we opened — we had no idea.”
It was Mulgrew, who directed and played Knox in the original production, who unlocked the story. “He found the world of the piece; it’s not a historical drama, although there is a sense of that, it is about the vibrancy of the storytelling and the words. He came into the rehearsal room in the Little Lyceum studio, which is no longer there —it’s where the Traverse is now — a great space but quite manky. He said, ‘I’ve got it, it’s a bear pit, it’s the people under the waltzers, it’s the fairs, the travelling circus. We’re the vagabond players, a gang of tinks telling a story.’ ”
Thus the story of the two queens, cousins separated by religion and trapped on an island too small for both of them, as told by a grubby collective which includes a talking crow, was the toast of the festival. Lochhead remembers queuing for another show, outside the old Traverse in the Grassmarket, when a woman from Penguin came up and asked if they could publish the text. It toured Scotland then transferred to the Donmar Warehouse in London (after some discussion with the director about the ability of the southern audience to understand Lochhead’s dialogue).
These days, it is studied by drama and literature students and performed all over the world. As of next month, a new generation will have a chance to meet the vagabond players in some far-flung village halls and community centres. The National Theatre of Scotland is taking a new production to some of our most theatre-deprived outposts...